Eventually you do develop the knack to find humour in a subject that has consumed most of your life. A topic that you have lived, breathed, and thrived upon. A subject that has been a raison d’etre of India’s most veteran writer Meher Castelino and one that she writes about in her most recent book. Yes, we are referring to fashion and its world of whimsy. One that she picks cudgels with in her most recent book, Fashion Musings, jibing at what are given situations, joking around real-life bastions, and saying it as it is.
A crisp, easy-to-read book with a foreword by her pal Tarun Tahiliani, Fashion Musings dwells upon subjects that were hitherto pushed under the carpet. “It is an insider’s view offered through the rosy lens of humour and chutzpah.” But cut through the floss and you have some hard realities staring right back at you. She looks at gossip around fashion in her chapter ‘fashion banter’; she dwells upon the fashion quandary of quality over success; she jibes about Mentor Moms and fashion weeks. “I have tried to show this world in an alive, real manner.”
Meher Castelino, fashion commentator, expert, columnist and protagonist, is someone I have looked up to all my life. Not just for her wealth of knowledge on the subject, her seasoned eye or her precise analysis of a couture collection. But also for the way she has poised herself in the whimsical world of fashion where the only constant is change and you are as good as your last scoop or VVIP interview.
In this effervescent world, Meher has lasted, in the forefront, as a respected voice for a clean five decades! A South Bombay girl, Meher Castelino’s rendezvous with fashion and beauty goes back to 1964 when she won the first Femina Miss India crown, soon after graduating from Lawrence School, Lovedale. She represented the country at the Miss Universe and Miss United Nations Contests. Those were the glorious days when Indian fashion was just about waking to indigenous design and Meher raged the catwalk, often walking the ramp for shows she was choreographing. That is when she was not busy editing Gentlemen’s Fashion Quarterly, Flair and Eve’s Weekly. Or leading design departments of leading export houses.
A model for the first 14 years, this cerebral woman took to writing. “Soon after I penned my first article in Eve’s Weekly in 1973. I have never looked back ever since. I was invited to visit Germany, France, Italy, USA, South Africa, Turkey, Netherlands and Singapore to view haute couture fashion shows by international designers but what gives me real pride is to see how India and Indian designers have found their own pretty little place in the sun. The arrival of India on the global fashion scene is incredible.” And it is this incredulous world that Meher’s most recent book dwells deeply upon. A must read.